The CSAC database is the first systematic and large-scale inquiry into various types of enslavement within modern armed conflicts. It measures reports of conflict-related enslavement committed by armed actors during the years 1989-2016. It includes every case and type of slavery across 171 wars and conflicts fought between those dates.
The armed actors include nation-states, pro-government militias, rebel groups, insurgents, and other sub-state actors.
The database records information on the forms of slavery present, including child soldiering, sexual exploitation / forced marriage, forced labour, and human trafficking. Another variable records whether the use of slavery by an armed actor was in pursuit of tactical or strategic aims or both.
Sides involved in a conflict are designated Side A or Side B. Both are by definition primary parties to the conflict. Side A is always the government side of internal conflicts and the colonial state in extrastate conflicts. Side B is always the opposition side of internal conflicts and is a state in interstate conflicts. Conflicts are coded as to whether each form of slavery was perpetrated by Side A, Side B, neither, or both.
While the plight of child soldiers has been clear for some time, the extent of other forms of slavery – from forced marriage and the sale of slaves through human trafficking by armed groups – has never been measured.
We see the coding of slavery within conflict as a step toward generating more scholarship, debate, and understanding of when and how state and non-state actors use enslavement within armed conflicts, with the goal of learning how to mitigate and possibly eradicate slavery in warfare
In the future, we will extend this longitudinal dataset back to WWII as well as keeping it up-to-date with new conflicts. Future lines of research to be considered include:
- Geographical contexts of conflicts and potential effects on types of enslavement
- Reasons/predictors for tactical enslavement and for strategic enslavement
- Potential risks for further exploitation of enslavement in post-conflict environments
- Potentially unique effects of enslavement in conflicts on the victims and perpetrators
The dataset can also be downloaded from the CSAC homepage.
Key Findings
- Slavery and human trafficking are present in 90 per cent of modern wars.
- The most common type of enslavement in war zones was the use of child soldiers, occurring in 87 per cent of armed conflicts, with child soldiers more likely to be used by Side B. Enslaved children were found in 252 disputes over territory and 221 disputes over governmental issues. When Side A and Side B both enslaved children, 190 instances were over territory, and 282 were due to governmental disputes
- Sexual exploitation and/or forced marriage was present in a third (32 per cent) of modern wars. 21 per cent included forced labour and 14 per cent contained instances of human trafficking.
- The data show that although nation-states (Side A) are less likely to enslave children as soldiers, they are more likely to engage in other forms of sexual violence in armed conflicts. It was observed that both ‘sides’ within a conflict commit sexual exploitation and forced marriage, with researchers recording 10 per cent of instances by Side A and 12 per cent by Side B, as well as 12 per cent of occasions where both sides used this form of slavery. This is in contrast to the use of child soldiers in armed conflicts, in which case Side A is rarely the offender.
- Compared to child soldiers and sexual exploitation/forced marriage, there were fewer instances of human trafficking, defined as the onward sale of enslaved persons. Side A is responsible for less than one percent of all cases, whereas Side B accounts for 15 per cent of all cases.
- Enslavement is more likely to take place in internal armed conflicts than other conflict types, such as the recent war involving ISIS in Iraq.
- The dataset shows that slavery in war can be both a tactic (forced labour supporting armed groups) and strategic – such as the slavery used by ISIS as part of a strategy of genocide against the Yazidi people.
